Summary
In a very recent avoidance law decision the Austrian Supreme Court held that shareholders of Austrian limited liability companies, even if they are only small minority shareholders, can under certain circumstances be under a specific duty to investigate the company’s financial situation because of their statutory information and book inspection rights. If they fail to do so, they may have to return received payments if challenged by the insolvency administrator (Supreme Court file no. 3 Ob 117/18d).
Legal framework
The Austrian Insolvency Code provides for the possibility to challenge certain disadvantageous transactions carried out by the debtor after material insolvency has occurred, especially if the creditor knew or should have known of its debtor's material insolvency. This risk of legal actions being contested is of particularly high relevance for shareholders who are also creditors of the debtor company, as the Austrian Supreme Court recently decided that shareholders' information rights would result in an increased level of due diligence.
Background
Creditors of an insolvent entity file their claims against the entity with the insolvency administrator (Germany) or insolvency court (Austria). If a claim is accepted, it is registered in the insolvency table as an accepted claim and the creditor is listed as an insolvency creditor in the insolvency proceedings.
Recent case law from the Supreme Court(1) demonstrates once again that lenders can be held liable by creditors of an insolvent borrower under certain conditions. In particular, a lender may be held liable where it has significant influence over the borrower's management. However, only a few cases have met the necessary level of influence. The case discussed below shows that total disregard of this risk can have severe consequences for lenders.
To all insolvency proceedings opened before a court of an EU Member State after 26 June 2017, the Regulation (EU) 2015/848 of 20 May 2015 on Insolvency Proceedings (recast) will be applicable.
ALBANIA AUSTRIA BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA BULGARIA CROATIA CZECH REPUBLIC HUNGARY POLAND ROMANIA SERBIA SLOVAK REPUBLIC SLOVENIA UKRAINE 1 TO OUR READERS Welcome to the 6th edition of the DRInsider, the quarterly Newsletter of the Wolf Theiss Dispute Resolution Practice Group. We are happy to once again provide you with interesting news covering the various CEE/SEE jurisdictions in which we practice.
In three similar decisions of 17 March 2015[1] the Austrian Supreme Court (“OGH”) clarified how insolvency proceedings may affect an already pending arbitration.
By order of the Commercial Court of Vienna from 30.11.2015, bankruptcy proceedings were opened against the assets of the food chain Zielpunkt GmbH. With liabilities amounting to approximately 237 million euros, the Zielpunkt insolvency is the biggest of 2015. Zielpunkt has 229 branches in total in Austria and employs 2708 employees. The insolvency administrator is trying to sell as many branches as possible. The acquisition of Zielpunkt branches by competitors, as by the two biggest grocers REWE and Spar, however, raises competition law concerns due to the large market share.
The right to set-off claims and obligations in insolvency proceedings is an important tool for creditors in order to protect themselves against the insolvency risk of a contractual counterparty. This article gives a short overview of the rules for set-off in insolvency proceedings in Austria and certain CEE jurisdictions not taking into account special provisions for close-out netting and similar transactions.
Austria
Set-off in insolvency proceedings